Forbidden Blog

Maybe you've heard someone joke about sleeping on a textbook to "absorb" the information through their skull. Or perhaps you've come across a joke about listening to a foreign language while your sleep so you can wake up completely fluent. Many of us wish it could all be true - that we could pick up skills in our sleep. According to researchers are Northwestern University, it might be possible.

Slow-Wave Sleep + Music

During the Northwestern study, volunteers were taught how to create computer-generated music with precise key presses. Once they learned a portion of the tune, researchers then asked them to sleep for 90 minutes. This sort of sleep is referred to a "deep" or "slow-wave" sleep and is often associated with memory building.

During REM, the participants would dream and imagine situations based on their stored knowledge. During deep sleep, their minds would rummage through everything that just happened. If they were learning music, they would process information on music, though in an almost dreamlike state.

Researchers continued the music while the participants slept, playing soft, slow notes until the tune was over. When the participants woke up and continued playing the songs, there were less errors.

There unfortunate news is you probably can't learn new things while you sleep. To summarize, if you were to practice a song and then listen to it in your sleep, you might wake up with the song memorized or with some sort of knowledge concerning how to play the song.

As far as the foreign language goes, it might be possible to spend a day studying it and then sleeping with an audio lesson playing softly. Let's hope so, because I always wanted to sleep during my Spanish courses and this would let me do both at once.

What's interesting is the idea of sound. While researchers suppose there are more ways to study during deep sleep, the concept of "playing" something keeps popping up.

Would an audio book work?

Reading In Your Sleep

Under the same theory, it might be possible to read during the day and sleep with an audio book playing at night to retain some knowledge. In fact, Ray Bradbury explores the theory in Fahrenheit 451, when Faber reads the Book of Job to Montag. In Auldous Huxley's Brave New World , humans are preconditioned through sleep-learning.

I would argue this would work more with nonfiction than fiction itself. You can probably fill in the blanks of a story based on factual information. Of course, if a fiction novel is realistic in terms of story and plot development, then the same notion might come to fruition.

For now, why don't you tell me if you've ever read or learned in your sleep? I once was in a sleepwalk-like state and wrote a story outline on the wall of my college dorm. What strange things have you accomplished in your sleep?

When the estrogen-driven vampire craze arrived in literature and then in film (yep, where do you think cinema finds it's ideas?), I was a young college dweeb overwhelmed by the tintinnabulation of Ball State's Bell Tower and laughter coming from apartments and dormitories, which ultimately denied me the chance to stand against the blood-sucking invasion.

My fear at the time was that Bram Stoker would become so enraged with certain works that he would rise from the grave, undead, and come to devour all of mankind.

Now as an active writer, I want to lead the resistance. My initial approach was to write an intense new view on the zombie that would remind everyone why the creature is cool and should stay in the realm of the cult.

I mean, our parents were stoked after seeing Night of the Living Dead by George Romero in 1968, but you know what they did? They didn't go out and wear zombie-faced clothes, make memes about bath salts, or drag zombies into the sea of mainstream reruns. No, they went out and smoked some pot or dropped a little acid and became part of one of the greatest movements that lead into the next twenty years.

Since drugs are super-illegal now (although a bit more ubiquitous), I suggest we make sure the zombie doesn't lose whatever it is the zombie has. We actually learned about zombies in one of the earliest surviving works in literature.

Most Zombies Won't Kill You . . . ?

One of the most famous real-life stories of zombism comes from 1982. This is a story of a man from Haiti named Clairvius Narcisse who was sold in 1962 to a zombie master by his brothers, buried, and unburied to work on a plantation as a zombie slave. Once his master died, he went on to wander around the sugar plantation for almost 20 years until the zombie spell wore off. One day in the market, he spotted his sister from the past and they reunited after sharing stories only they would know. It actually became a book (The Serpent and the Rainbow) and several movies, proving the entertainment industry will saturate anything.

Harvard enthnobiologist Dr. Wade Davis (author of The Serpent and the Rainbow) researched the story to see if there was any truth behind it. He discovered that puffer fish and toad skin can kill someone without killing them, so to speak. The idea is, victims are drugged with theses toxins to a point before death, and then after hallucinations can be so severe they create memory loss. If a skilled voodoo priest performed these tasks appropriately, the victim would know nothing else besides what the master has taught it. However, after awhile, the drugs wear off.

There's quite a bit of controversy behind this story, so the answers are left in question. Whether it's possible to create a zombie or not, it seems they won't kill you until you order them to. Of course, if the victim is alive once the drugs wear off, then you'll probably have one pissed off mad man who wants nothing more than your blood.

If you want to stop entertainment companies from over-saturating zombies like they did vampires, become a skilled voodoo priest and turn their friends into zombies. Once they see this, they'll either pale in fear or sell-out their friends for some quick cash.

Buried Alive.

Just because it rises from the grave doesn't make it a zombie. There's a notion, that, when people are buried, they stay buried. You know, because they're dead.

There are also numerous urban legends about being buried alived, which have been made into countless novels and movies for a cheap buck. What's really unfortunate is some of these legends aren't legends at all.

In the 19th Century, people were buried alive more often than anyone would care to admit. At the break of the 20th Century, William Tebb tried to collect every true story of premature burial that he could find. Tebb's main prerogative was to find out how such a phenomenon could happen and to find the right preventive measures. Nonetheless, he found far more cases than he expected. How many did he find, you ask?

There were 219 known cases of premature burial and 149 cases in which embalming and dissection began without the person actually being dead-dead. Lucky for us, our medical science has evolved to the point we can bring someone back from near-death or comas, as well as bring them to such states.

Maybe if we have more patients escaping the grave and rushing over to California, we could stop the zombie abuse. Then again, they'll probably accept death at the hands of pissed-off undeads as they film the entire scenario.

Call From the Grave

You know what's interesting? Zombies never make phone calls. It's more of a ghost thing to call from the grave, but since we're all pretty much slaves to technology - myself included - it seems to make sense that a barely functional individual could thumb a few buttons before their hand falls off.

Zombie spells and premature burials aren't the only true stories that lead us to encounters with the undead. In fact, in 2008, Charles Peck died during a tragic Metrolink derailment. After his family watched the dreadful news and were told he died in the wreck, they claimed they received around 30 calls from his cell phone. Once the destruction was cleaned up, a search crew found Peck's body. Indeed, he died during the wreck.

There's a couple theories I've come up with: A) He landed on his phone. This wouldn't explain the unique calls, however, unless they were assigned similarly in his contacts. B) He was alive for a short while after the wreck, but in bad shape. He might've made the calls for help before his body gave out.

Although this is surely in bad taste, if you ever find yourself in a near-death situation, call someone in the entertainment industry and threaten to haunt them if they make a zombie flick out of you.

(Another interesting aspect to this case is, that, a Metrolink engineer sent out texts mere seconds before the crash happened. It's not that the engineer knew death was imminent, but he sent out 50-plus texts during his shift. The timing of the texts hints that he missed a signal about the incoming freight-train due to looking down at a his phone.)

Apology for Any Bad Aftertastes

As the title conveys, I apologize for any witticisms made in poor taste. However, I aim to prove a point that there's a reason stories from the grave and of the undead are taken so seriously.

Zombie tales should not be romanticized in any sense and they shouldn't be funny. There's nothing funny about the aforementioned events, accept maybe the cheesy don't-text-while-driving ending to the train wreck. (Is God a hack horror writer too?) These tales should criticize social, medical, and scientific experimentation. They should refer to our society and provide precautions.

If you think my comments were a little low-brow, just wait until some desperate writer teams up with a greedy movie-maker to create a zombie flick in the same vain of Twilight. When women are surrendering themselves as slaves to powerful, undead, shiny creatures, no one will be happy.

In 1914, Rebecca West wrote about "The Duty of Harsh Criticism" in The New Republic, which by large, focused on the way reviewers were starting to cheer on authors rather than provide gut-checking feedback. Eight days ago, Ruth Franklin spoke on a similar topic after she received the 2012 Roger Shattuck in literary criticism from the Center of Fiction. While Franklin was surprised to earn an award she once never knew existed, she was even more surprised to discover the limited amount of book reviewers in 2012.

It's true: While the number of unique novels and authors is increasing, the number of book reviewers or critics is on a decline. It's not a bad gig to be paid to read all day and then submit what you thought about a certain work of fiction. In fact, for most writers, a book reviewer career can be tempting at times. How often do writers come across other people who like to talk about the craft of writing and what they thought of a certain book. If the job's so great, why aren't there more reviewers?

West's idea of the critic turning into more of a publicist than anything else pales in comparison to the 2012 book reviewer. As a matter of fact, you can even Tweet book reviewers today and they'll be happy to review your book. It's almost always positive feedback when they do.

In part, the positive feedback in an online article works to, not only draw more attention to your novel and personal website, but also its products and journal. The term circle-jerk comes to mind every time I think about certain aspects of the writing world.

However, I wouldn't mind some negative criticism from time to time, especially if it's constructive. A writer encounters far too much criticism in college, but then almost none when they finally publish a work. Maybe the difference is, in college, you're being reviewed by other egocentric aspiring writers, whereas in the real world you face readers and critics trying to solidify their opinion.

However, with the evolution of digital publishing, there are more and more books out there, which would lead you to think there would be more reviewers - more people calling you a terrible writer. But there aren't.

One of my goals in life is to have a book banned. How can a book become banned if none is calling it too controversial?

Many writers struggle with obtaining professional reviews. And let's face it, with the number of books out there, it's rather tough to find an established reviewer who isn't busy. Even with the lack of reviews today, I often hear when other authors receive feedback it comes with very few jeers. Seriously, one or two complains about your work isn't a lot considering the number of rejections that came before the book was even published.

Reviewers need great novelist to challenge their criticism and bring their name into public light. Likewise, novelist need reviewers to not only advertise their works but also make sure there's a gatekeeper, someone who decides what work of fiction exceeds the status quo.

Writers don't become professionals over night because they are simply good writers. The best writers come from those who say "no" and claim their dream is impossible. Likewise, they strive for a "yes" with reason.

Without someone to describe the Northern Lights, we can only assume it's beautiful. Beautiful without how or why, however, can describe almost anything.

I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm roaming the Internet for interesting blog topics, I inevitably stumble on some site about drugs. It might not be a bad idea to document psychedelic experiences, since in it is science after all. We're talking about changing the chemical composition of the human body and trying to identify the results.

The unfortunate part about such reports on these experiences is that sometimes the comments are from a bunch of burnouts and sound a lot like, "Man, I'm so high" or "I was trippin' balls." In order to figure out how the brain responds to psychedelics, Matthew Baggot (University of Chicago) and a few colleagues are working on a way for computer-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide a much more precise portrayal of each individual trip.

Making DMT Less Cool Sounding.

There are sites like Erowid that pride themselves on documenting the complexity of the human-to-drug relationship. Unlike many other sites, Erowid can boast it provides scientific information, general experience information, street knowledge, and warnings about the most popular drugs from tobacco to MDMA to DMT.

Baggot and crew have decided to take information from each site and run it through their algorithms. For instance, DMT and Savlia are different substances with different effects, but information describing the experiences of both have very familiar descriptions. If both drugs were to be smoked, the AI would see similarities since they both hit the bloodstream at a fast rate. While the information from the AI is still in progress, it seems to be that the AI could accurately describe psychedelic experiences, point out similarities and differences, and perhaps figure out what thoughts derived while or after using a certain drug.

Figuring Out How Bath Salts Turn Humans Into Zombies.

Although it's not the main intent behind the robo-tripping experiment, the information gathered could explain why people think what they do under the influence. In another words, they could hypothesize why bath salts have lead to over 15 stories of crime. My argument is that bath salts are more like PCP than cocaine or marijuana, but I only know what I've been taught in psychology courses and really dramatic Just-Say-No videos from the 1980s. Besides, Patrick Bateman snorted some coke in American Psychoand ended up murdering dozens of women in his thoughts, right?

I guess the most interesting part of this topic to me centers around artists. Believe it or not, a lot of artists have been known to experiment a time or two in their lives. I'm just wondering if this science will be able to determined where certain painters obtained their ideas, or where writers like Poe, King, or Huxley found their inspiration.

The more you learn, the more you obfuscate.

Ever have one of those ha-I-got-you moments with someone of incredible intelligence, only to lose an argument? For instance, someone who is generally right all of the time messes up and you call them out. You point out the flaws in their argument, but then they rationalize their claims to such depths the any other human being would drown in thought. This is just one of the many ways a smart person, who is wrong, can make themselves sound right.

5. Shortcuts

In this recent The New Yorker Post, Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate and professor of psychology at Princeton, discovered most smart people are actually pretty stupid.

For years, he's been asking very simple questions that require a minute portion of analysis and arithmetic. In the article, they ask:

You're probably tempted to just divide the end of the data in half, which would mean it takes 24 days for the patch to cover the entire lake. However, it's kind of like the doubling-penny scenario they teach you in grade school (if you gave 1 penny on day 1 and 2pennies on day 2, etc). We're talking about doubling each day, which means it would take 47 days for the lily pads to cover half the lake.

In short, the more you know, the more bullshit you can use to take shortcuts. Instead of looking at the facts and doing some basic math, you might try to take a shortcut and then rationalize your answer with everything else you know.

4. In with the new, in with the old.

A study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology concludes that more intelligent people find difficulty in overcoming their biases. It's rather easy for them to point out everyone else's flaws, but mostly because they've made similar mistakes.

If you're the sports-minded type, you've probably had that coach who gave you hell. I know I've had one. It's because they had a shortcoming in their athletic career and it pains them to see the same mistake happening again before their eyes. In essence, they want you to achieve what they couldn't. They feel, if they punish you for mistakes they even made, it will make you the best performer possible.

Unfortunately, with the more intellectually inclined, you're less likely to admit you're correcting someone for their benefit. What happens is smarter people can consume so much information and apply it day after day. If you were to hold a bias while in college, but then you learned how to correct your fallacies, then you're more likely to explore new solutions and drop your bias. In the end, though, you might end up losing your cool with someone making the same mistake. How stupid of them, right?

On the other hand, if there's a certain thought process that's part of your code, it stays there. All the new information you encounter will become ammo for your weapon of justification. In articles related to this study, some suggest this is the very reason people with high IQs favor creationism, but I don't write about religion. You'll have to find these debates and draw conclusions for yourself.

The big idea behind this centers around the idea of biases before your "became smart". If it was at the core of your thinking and personality, you're likely to argue it with far-fetched concepts that you can piece together in a narrative ever so eloquently.

3. The Great Narrator

For this argument, you have to assume someone who is smart is also a great communicator.

The reason an intelligent person can out-argue anyone - even when they're wrong - is because they can take an set of abstract points and string together in such away you'd think they're the best writer, actor, or president ever.

The ability to sound smart, however, does not mean you're always right. You just think you're right.

There's a reason your teachers and/or professors tell you to proofread, proofread, proofread. You can have the most revolutionary concept in the world, but god forbid your make a typo.

When someone who prides themselves on being more intelligent than any other being in the entire universe, they will attack the slightest errors. It's more an ego-trip than anything else.

Sure, a lot of grammatical errors will deter someone from reading whatever it is you've written. Trust me, this blog probably has plenty of posts that were invalidated by one or two misspellings or malapropisms. In all honesty, though, I'm not bothered by a mistake or two. Someone is so concerned with the content of their message, that, sometimes they cannot see a slight misteak. (Haha.)

BUT DON'T YOU EVER USE ALL CAPS OR MAKE AN ERROR WHEN YOU'RE ARGUING WITH A SELF-PROCLAIMED GENIUS. IT WILL SPOIL EVERYTHING AND BECOME THE GREAT DEFLECTION TOOL OF THE ARGUMENT. ALSO, don't EMPHASIZE THE wrong words.

1. Voice of Reason

While this video is based on politics, it makes a great point. Sometimes the smartest of people feel that they know something everyone else doesn't. After years of studying theories in college, I, too, thought I was seeing things that most people weren't.

But consider this: You're in situation in which your personal beliefs will not allow you to carry out a course of action. This typically occurs in high-pressure situations such as war. If you carry out the said action, you become a hypocrite. If you don't, everyone dies. Which do you choose?

There are times when you should be the voice of the voiceless. But pressure can interfere with intelligence in many situations, which leads to speaking out during the wrong moment. Addressing a problem is one thing, but accessing it and figuring out a more efficient way to take action is something else. Being a utilitarian under certain circumstances doesn't hurt either.

Final Thoughts

I've committed almost every one of these crimes at some point. I've argued to death an erroneous point all because I was taught the wrong way. Of course, I've been right when I thought I was wrong.

I'm not so much of a grammar nazi as I am the Voice or Reason sometimes. It's important to listen and research the facts before you address others on a situation.

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"That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward."

- Ernest Hemingway

Many writers says they wouldn't be to write if they weren't depressed. But how true is such a notion?

The story of several great American authors perhaps suggests the true connection between depression and creativity. For as long as people have written, they have suggested there is some purpose behind depression. It's their anxieties and fierce lows that cause certain epiphanies or lead them towards an alternate line of thinking, which is then churned into a great story. However, despite her perpetual manic personality, I think Sylvia Plath said it best:

"When you are insane, you are busy being insane—all the time."

Both Plath and Hemingway have hinted at a disconnect between depression and creativity. While they might have often suggested loneliness and sadness lead to some of their best writing, there were definite moments when they couldn't write due to feeling too low. What's more interesting is that Hemingway was at the peak of his career when he decided on a 6-year hiatus - or rather, when the same depression that led to his unfortunate demise perhaps took him away from the pen.

A counter-argument stems from an observation on David Foster Wallace. He was well-known for his severe depression, yet he produced volumes of work. How did that happen? Yet again, once he decided to take himself off of his anti-depressants, the worst happened. While it's difficult to figure out whether depression influences writing or whether writing influences depression, there are some who argue there must be a benefit to the ailment. Some sort of natural selection allows for depression to continue existing, which hints that it must have a purpose.

Is There An Upside to Depression?

What I found particularly interesting about the Psychology Today article, is that it reviews research by Andy Thomson (University of Virginia) and Paul Andrews (Virginia Commonwealth), who claim that there's a reason for depression - the "depression paradox".

Their studies center around evolutionary psychology. That is, they believe as evolution continues, certain psychological ailments come and go. For instance, some studies suggest there are benefits to Alzheimer's. Likewise, if depression is allowed to exist during the course of evolution, then it must have a benefit. Here's their conclusion through the words of Jonah Lehrer:

"Andrews and Thomson see depression as a way of bolstering our feeble analytical skills, making it easier to pay continuous attention to a difficult dilemma. ... If depression didn't exist — if we didn't react to stress and trauma with endless ruminations — then we would be less likely to solve our predicaments."

There are plenty of arguments for and against Andrews' and Thomson's research, but nevertheless there's a high connection between affective disorders and creativity. This isn't saying there's anything wrong with the mental state of creativity types, but there's definitely a trend. I certainly can't say anything more than I found this information quite interesting. If I had any answers, I would be famous and rich and way too busy and happy to write. You know, not because of the money but because I made a significant contribution to human psychology as a telecommunications graduate.

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Do you think popular media today have an affect on the way literature history of future generations will look back on novels?

For instance, Mary Shelley, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut and many other authors are remembered for their works because of quality and relevance.

Today, many novels have become famous largely due to TV and film adaptations. Do you believe the popular stories of today will be remembered in their initial form or because of their saturation through other forms of media?

I was fortunate enough to ask these questions to Red Fez editor and Literary Underground mastermind Lynn Alexander and New York Times Bestselling author of such books as CrankEllen Hopkins. Here's what they had to say:

Saturation - Lynn Alexander

Red Fez Editor Lynn Alexander

Unfortunately I think many novels are commercially successful because of the franchise model, and the ability to translate the story elements into marketable merchandise in addition to films. A good example is Twilight because it wasn't just the movies but also the way that stores like Hot Topic were able to blitz the niche market of young readers with merchandise. Walk in at the height and you would have seen DVD parties, t shirts, pencil cases, earrings . . . We saw the same for Harry Potter and now with Hunger Games.

I think that these kinds of novels will be remembered for the trend, less for the novels themselves. I find that many people have not actually READ the novels but it doesn't seem to matter.

Now on the other hand, I think there are novels that will be remembered because of their ideas - helped along by film of course but also helped by the appeal of the concept regardless of form. Think Fight Club. Great novel, great movie. Doesn't matter.

Your question says "popular stories" and if you focus there, then no. I think they will be remembered for their film adaptations and because of the saturation. What is there to really remember about many popular stories? Many are written as though they are intended to be made into movies. Many are terrible, reflect a reading level that is just sad, and probably don't deserve to be remembered.

For those that began as great books that just happened to be adapted, not necessarily as popular but successful, I think some will remember them and hopefully appreciate them in the future. I think of examples like Angela's Ashes but it also depends on the window of time when you say "popular stories of today". Today, literally? Or just modern? Adaptations of Jane Austen or Edith Wharton or F. Scott Fitzgerald or E.M. Forster will likely not change the appreciation for the novels, which are still being read despite their film counterparts. And some novels just seem stuck as novels, in a good way. Toni Morrison, for example.

Painting the Picture - Ellen Hopkins

NY Times Bestselling Author Ellen Hopkins

I think it's unfortunate that future generations will be pushed into digital mediums because of what is happening right now, today. Reading a book, on page, not onscreen, works a part of the brain that may, in fact, become extinct within a few generations. Why do I think this is sad? Because that is the CREATIVE part of the brain.

Once future generations allow other forms of media to PAINT the story, rather than letting their brains do the coloring in, they will become dumber and dumber. The same entities encouraging this today are helping to defund education. They don't want the workforce to be creative or smart--too much competition.

My heartfelt advice is to fight back! Work the creative part of your brain. Read (print). Write! Educate yourselves every way possible that does not involve some media hack telling you what is "true." Investigate. Learn what is true. Know what? It isn't easy. But if you don't, this planet has a sorry future indeed.

My Final Thoughts

The reason I was compelled to ask others what they thought was because I wasn't sure of the answer myself. I believe in the various outlets for stories, and at heart I root for the story more than I do the form.

However, there's something to be said about written works. As Ellen Hopkins pointed out, it's far more beneficial to process a story than to have it completely spelled out for you. Film and TV tell you what to see, think, hear, and so on. There's very little room for interpretation beyond the weak subtext.

Horror stories, as an example, are much scarier in the written form than up on a screen. In this instance, they use your own fears and imagination to haunt you, whereas film and TV tries to make you afraid of someone else's nightmares. Horror novels bring out your fears and play them against, while other forms tend to focus on the pop-out scare.

An oversight on my part was merchandising. In Lynn Alexander's example of Twilight, it's easy to focus on the books and the novels, but what is sometimes left out of the equation is product. After she mentioned it, I remember seeing the lunchboxes, candy, trading cards, clothes, and many other promotions. Was the book so revolutionary it reached to such heights, or was it all a clever franchise model?

Edgar Allan Poe comes to mind now. Poe made a name for himself as a writer way before anyone adapted his stories into film or used his ideas for plots and video games. When Poe items first came to stores, I thought it was kind of cool. I liked Poe and now I could flaunt such a fact, but after awhile it became too much. It was almost as though to like Poe is akin to loving cliches. Lucky for Poe, he's already cemented in history.

Will the works of our time have the same opportunity to go down in history on merit, or will they become too much of a marketing scheme and fade away?

Since I'm left with multiple theories and no prophetic powers, I leave the question with you. How do you think the constant media saturation of novels will affect they way they will be remembered in the future?

C.M. Humphries

The recent passing of the prolific and arguably prophetic Ray Bradbury made me wonder how much of his fiction was truthful. As I've stated in a few blogs, nothing makes for better fiction than reality. One exemplar of said notion is the meaning behind Bradbury's most famous novel Fahrenheit 451, in which he isn't arguing as much about a dystopian society as he is the placement of literature by the television.

Given the publication date of the novel - 1953 (or 1950 in it's shorter form "The Fireman") - it's obvious why Bradbury was worried that television replaced the novel. But if television stripped down the culture of literature to the point storylines with substantial meaning were devoid, then where does literature hide now in vast multi-dimensional universe of telecommunications?

Passing of the Torch

Many scholars worry about the increasing irrelevancy of literature in society, as it was once a more "intellectual" part of popular culture until we became glued to our television sets. They argued (and rightfully so in my mid) that literature, especially in the long form, represented so much culture. It contained not only elements of the imagination but also accurate portrayals of human interaction coinciding with the author's social commentary, which more often than not reflected popular concerns either during the novel's time or in a timeless manner.

When television was in its Golden Age, the only real show to watch was Kraft Television Theater, a show that may very well sum up all television has ever been: product promotion. We buy expensive televisions to have better clarity of more channels begging us to either make impulse buys or keep up with the Jones. As television evolved further, products were isolated in commercials or hidden within the stories in the form of product placement or integration, although these two elements should not be used interchangeably.

In all honesty, though, Bradbury was onto something. Television offered a more favorable form of narrative consumption, but due to many variables such as rating systems and time frames, the stories were thin in terms of culture. Each show had it's punch line or gimmick and relied to heavily on popular culture references and interactions. For a more popular example Friends might have well been in Indiana or outer-space. It didn't matter. Even the friends could've been replaced.

Films were left out of the equation for the most part, because they tended to be longer and had much more depth to most of them than the average TV show. This isn't counting summer blockbusters, of course. Put the words "shit explodes" on a poster and you've summed up about all you're going to see during the summer months.

The interesting part today is that TV is threatened by the Internet. There's so much to consume on the web, and it's also so easy to procure. TV's advantage was the lucrative nature of commercials and product use. Online you can watch shows without or with limited commercial interruptions. The ads can be found anywhere, the content is more accessible, and it pleases all demographics.

Whereas the novel is left in the digital dust to suffer even in the age of eBooks, TV is becoming more innovative . . . or so the big companies think.

TV shows, save reality television, are now longer and have richer content. Take Mad Men, for example. It's not your average television series that shows two people talking on the phone in order to set up back-story or the premise of the episode. Instead, it bypasses the instance and focuses on the more internal battles of the characters. In other words, TV is trying to put all of the elements of a novel into a show. It's now about how characters feel, society's role on situations, setting, verisimilitude, subtext, etc.

So where does this leave literature?

Selling the Author

If the web dissolved the culture of television into content for kids with ADD and, before then, television tore at the depth of literature, where do novels fit in? Let's be honest, do you use your Kindle Fire, Nook, or iPad more for reading books or watching movies, playing games, and surfing the web? How many entertainment apps are there compared to the few for eBooks?

No matter which medium of consumption you prefer, they all have one thing in common: celebrities. Movies and television, despite original intentions, became all about the faces. Even Apple sold consumers on Justin Long and Steve Jobs. Microsoft still uses Bill Gates as their front man. Mark Zuckerberg is a household name. Why not authors too?

What sells a book, it's title or the big words "Stephen King"? Who wrote the Twilight series? J.K. Rowling is famous for . . . ?

Let's compare a few folks: Charlie Sheen is famous for Two and a Half Men or Platoon anymore. He's known for his personality and not his works. In the same way, what is starting to sell books is the author as much as the work itself. Novelists are striving to be celebrities, which almost sounds counter-intuitive at times. Stephen King is the Master of Horror, right? Didn't he also write The Green Mile, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", and Dolores Claiborne?

The Remaining Question Is, What's Next?

Tomorrow in The Forbidden Blog:

I have Red Fezeditor Lynn Alexanderand New York Times Bestselling Author Ellen Hopkins sharing their thoughts on the situation as well as picking on my word choice in the following question:Do you think popular media today have an affect on the way literature history of future generations will look back on novels?

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Science vs. Art

Ever start to relive a moment from your younger years only to be contradicted by someone else who was part of the moment?

For instance, say you had a brother who always blew up his toys with fireworks. As you recall the event, you might swear he used to blow up some of your toys too, although someone else might disagree. What is worse is when a third person jumps in and says you're wrong, although you remember the moment like anything else.

According to this article, here's what happened: You clearly recalled your brother blowing up toys with fireworks. You remember the days when this event excited you, and perhaps you remember an event when your brother destroyed one of your toys, which wasn't so enthralling. As you look back on a toy that became nothing more than plastic burned down to static drips like dry wax, you might swear to the heavens that your brother destroyed your toy in one of his pyromaniac moments.

"Confabulate" was definitely not a word I learned until I read this article, and if it was on the GRE I sure failed that question. Basically it means that there were gaps in your memory that you filled in with plausible events from other memories or with scenarios that made sense with all of your previous knowledge.

This is just the beauty of how the mind works. Of course, once you confabulate (I love saying that word!) too often and too much of a story, you should probably be checked out. Otherwise, it's our natural storytelling process.

See, the mind doesn't really care about information nor does it remember it that well without a narrative. Sometimes when I used to take a test, I would recall a joke that was made while I was studying a certain subject. Many people remember things when there is some sort of story surrounding it. It's how Bill Nye can teach hyper-active kids the most boring concepts in science.

The downside of all this is many people have either chosen science or art. As it relates here, sure you remember a narrative better than a singular set of facts, but science can explain way. There's no magic or mystique to it, which is the very essence of art.

A lot of fiction has become unpopular because science explained some of the elements and made certain ideas erroneous at best. Think old-school sci-fi films and how you laughed at their notions of space.

It doesn't have to be science vs. art though. There's no reason you can't understand a situation and still admire the magic behind it. In fact, here's what Michael Gazzaniga, a cognitive neuroscientist and the author of Who's In Charge has to say:

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< Here's a quick link to Gazzaniga's Who's In Charge, which is definitely an intriguing read on how our minds work, especially with topics related to this blog post.

I recommend checking it out. It might even give you some great ideas for your next story. Fiction may be strange, but nothing is stranger than reality. Likewise, nothing makes for a better fiction story than reality.

The traditional video game industry is down in the dumps. Anywhere you look, like here, you find commentary on way the industry is failing and how it might ditch the huge hardware for hand-held devices. Before expensive units such as the Playstation and Xbox series become tiny telecommunication devices (which I can't really see myself buying), I thought I take a trip down memory lane with games related to another industry that sees similar lows: The print publishing industry.

You gotta love when an adaptation of a famous series of sci-fi novels simply becomes all out hack-and-slash.

Conan, which released for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 in 2007, is a button-smashing gore-fest that lets the player act as Conan the Barbarian from Robert E. Howard's fantasy/sci-fi literature.

Since the beast's popular appearance in Weird Tales magazine in the 1930s, Conan has been in the hands of many filmmakers, comic book writers, and so on. Each time someone uses the character, he has a slightly new look and a bit more of a drama centered around his rise to the throne. Once the stories took form in a video game, people had no idea where this guy came from, his literary relevance, or the fact that he had feelings. But they did give him a crazy sword and a spear.

When I read Dante's Inferno, it was nothing like this. It was all mooshy and touchy-touchy-feel-feel. Oh, and Italian.

If you ever played this game, you might've realized it's the preferred method for learning the story. I love the long poem form, but it's a bit DANTing of a read (see what I did there?).

It's a great tale, but the video game kind of has a PearlHarbor (the movie) feel to it. In Pearl Harbor it's a love-triangle - and oh yeah, war somewhere in the background. With Dante's Inferno (the video game), it's all about the war with something about Hell and a damned loved one in the distance.

To me, this was nothing more than a God of War rip-off interestingly akin to a suped-up Super Mario Brothers . . . except it had the nicest pairs of digital mammary glands anyone has even seen.

Nothing has been more overdone than Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. Yes that's right, there's a semicolon and a comma in the title.

Imagine if Mary Shelley were alive to day. Assuming Frankenstein would still work in today's culture, can you image how much cash she would rake in? You think Twilight was over-saturated . . .

Anyway, since I'm partial to old blow-on-the-cartridge-before-playing systems, let's stroll back to 1994, when this gem was released for Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis - and oh my lord - Sega CD.

(Quick digression: It's sad that Sega didn't stay in the hardware race. They were way ahead of anyone. I mean, they had the Internet- and media-ready Saturn and Dreamcast, but no one thought there was a point to have the Internet hooked up to a video game console.)

OK, oddly enough this game somewhat sticks to the ideas behind Frankenstein. It's based on the 1994 movies and not quite the book, but it's intriguing nonetheless. You get a wooden stick, which can be lit on fire, to swing at enemies. If I recall correctly, you can also shoot these big blue balls of negativity.

The game is about a creature who fights for acceptance as women throw Zelda-like pots at him and men blast away at him with muskets. Comparatively speaking, this is probably the most true-to-the-general-idea video game that has been ever made.

There are dozens more video games based on novel, and there are dozens of novels based on video games. At the end of the day, though, it's important to see the relationship between literature and video games. Actually, this blog was just about some fun nostalgia.

What Book-to-Game Do You Remember?

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Some people ask me why I don't write nonfiction, since I have so much to say about college, post-college blues, and so forth. The answer is relatively simple, and I think Kurt Anderson, author of True Believers, says it best:

The Pleasure of Writing Fiction

Whenever I write fiction, I often feel excited and intrigued. There's a certain sense of euphoria I undergo when I'm imagining as opposed to reliving in nonfiction.

For me, writing fiction is more like recreational sex, whereas nonfiction is like being a pornstar. With fiction, I am creating something new and really reaching into my imagination, whereas in nonfiction it's more like trying to look good on camera as I repeat the acts I've already done. Like Anderson, the only real joy I find from constructing a piece like an essay is having written. That is, when the story is ready to ship off, I am happy to be done with it. Sometimes with fiction, I don't want the story to end.

I've created new characters and events that I could explore for the rest of my life. When I finish a short story or novel, sometimes there's so much editing and leg work to be done that I am happy when the material is available but never want to look at it again. During the process, however, I couldn't enjoy anything more.

Nonfiction is almost the opposite experience for me. The entire process makes me want to quit early on. I don't know what it is. It's kind of like playing the guitar versus playing the piano for me. I love to write or learn new songs, because there's some sort of intimacy behind it. Piano on the other hand . . . Let me just say I admire anyone who has perfected it. The same goes for nonfiction authors.

Will I ever write a nonfiction piece? The truth is, I've written several, but I've never tried to have them published. I've been toying around with the post-college blues concept for awhile. I think I might be too lazy to do all the research. Or it might be that I'm not sure which angle to tell it from. Or maybe I don't want to relieve my past. Besides, in nonfiction you have to work a lot of freelance gigs before most publishers will even consider your proposal. There's another point: I prefer to have written the novel and polished it before proposing the idea for publication.

In short, I see myself eventually diving into the nonfiction world. For now, I'm working on getting His Daughter out there and writing a zombie novel tentatively titled The Illness.

What Brings You More Joy, Fiction or Nonfiction?

After my long rants about the zombie's image going down the drain, my heart is all warm and fuzzy after the recent zombie attack in Florida and the guy who cut out his entrails awhile back and threw them at a cop. Why am I happy about such horrifying events?

Because people pointed at the face-eating man and said, "Hey look, a zombie!"

They didn't see some rockstar or comedic romance and say, "It's like Zombieland!"

No they saw one of the most gruesome news stories ever and recognized it as a good ol' b-movie style zombie attack. Distastefully so, but a zombie attack nonetheless.

With that said, I've toyed around with a zombie story for quite sometime now, and have decided to give it another go.

The story starts off on a ship porting in Long Brooke, Chase County after a long journey back from Haiti. Under a light rain, four crew members try to enjoy a smoke on the deck, when they realize one of their members is missing. An all-out attack occurs when they find him in a cabin - or what he's become.

All but one man is bitten and torn to shreds. Although bitten, he jumps overboard and swims to the shore. So does the missing crew member.

That's all I'll spoil for now. I'll keep you in the know, especially if you subscribe.